(JTA) — A Jewish cemetery and Holocaust monument were damaged in Germany amid a string of unrelated acts of vandalism against Jewish heritage sites in central Europe.
The incident in Germany occurred over the weekend at the Jewish cemetery of Jamlitz, a town situated 55 miles south of Berlin, according to a report posted Monday on the website of the police department of the German state of Brandenburg.
At the cemetery, the perpetrator defaced the entrance sign and smashed the large glass plates of a display about the nearby Lieberose concentration camp, where Nazis kept Jewish forced labor workers. The damage was estimated at $4,770.
Earlier this month, police in Slovakia arrested two men who are suspected of vandalizing a Jewish cemetery and then publishing photos of the aftermath in social media.
The suspects, both 18 from the towns of Soporna and Sered, are believed to have knocked down headstones last month at the Jewish cemetery of Cifer located a few miles west of their homes, Martin Kredatusova, a spokesperson for the local police in the western city of Trnava, told the Slovakian TASR news agency on June 2.
According to TASR, their arrest was made possible by an anonymous tip sent to the Regional Monuments Office, containing photos and comments from social media which allegedly linked the suspects to the vandalism at Cifer.
The headstones were not broken, but the suspects, who were not named, may face trial for racial defamation, TASR reported.
In Poland, police in Radomsko, a city located 70 miles north of Krakow, arrested two men in their 20s on June 1 on suspicion that they shattered 13 Hebrew-language memorial plaques for the city’s Jewish community, which was annihilated during the Holocaust, the news site naszemiasto.pl reported.
Plaques had been placed the previous day for the opening of a commemoration project that the city called “Open Air Jewish Museum.” It was scheduled to open June 2.
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